MTSB president Mastura Abu Samah says: "Due to the unqualified success of the first SOFTEC last year, software testing guru and International Software Testing Board chairman, Rex Black, has committed to return as one of the keynote speakers."

"Another global keynote speaker is Malaysian Professor Jasbir Dhaliwal, who currently heads the System Testing Excellence Programme (STEP) at the University of Memphis, US," adds Samah.

Malaysian Software Testing Board (MSTB)--www.mstb.org--is incorporated as a voluntary and non-profiting organisation that represents the national and industry interest and promotes the broad profession of software testing. As a member of the ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualification Board) MSTB aims to provide the leadership and regulates the accreditation process and certification regulations for Malaysian software industry through promoting the development of a common body of understanding.

Government support

"SOFTEC09 is also planning to feature a specialist in software engineering methodologies, Capers Jones, who is the founder of Software Productivity Research, and is often associated with the function point model of cost estimation," said Samah. "His many computer science publications have been widely used by many organisations and educators."

"Themed 'Mind The Gap', SOFTEC09 will be held from 20-23 July in Kuala Lumpur, after a colloquium hosted by UNITEN (Tenaga National University)," said Samah. "Members of MSTB Board and its working group members support SOFTEC09 in their respective capacity as practitioners and academia etc. They are Custommedia, Mesiniaga, CASE-UTM (Centre for Advance Software Engineering), Mercatela, and Malaysian University of Science & Technology (MUST). MSTB is fully supported by the government ICT agency, Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC)."